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The Death of Achilles
Cover of The Death of Achilles
The Death of Achilles
A Novel
In 1882, after six years of foreign travel and adventure, renowned diplomat and detective Erast Fandorin returns to Moscow in the heart of Mother Russia. His Moscow homecoming is anything but peaceful. In the hotel where he and his loyal if impertinent manservant Masa are staying, Fandorin's old war-hero friend General Michel Sobolev ("Achilles" to the crowd) has been found dead, felled in his armchair by an apparent heart attack. But Fandorin suspects an unnatural cause. His suspicions lead him to the boudoir of the beautiful singer--"not exactly a courtesan"--known as Wanda. Apparently, in Wanda's bed, the general secretly breathed his last. . . .

From the Trade Paperback edition.
In 1882, after six years of foreign travel and adventure, renowned diplomat and detective Erast Fandorin returns to Moscow in the heart of Mother Russia. His Moscow homecoming is anything but peaceful. In the hotel where he and his loyal if impertinent manservant Masa are staying, Fandorin's old war-hero friend General Michel Sobolev ("Achilles" to the crowd) has been found dead, felled in his armchair by an apparent heart attack. But Fandorin suspects an unnatural cause. His suspicions lead him to the boudoir of the beautiful singer--"not exactly a courtesan"--known as Wanda. Apparently, in Wanda's bed, the general secretly breathed his last. . . .

From the Trade Paperback edition.
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About the Author-
  • BORIS AKUNIN is the pen name of Grigory Chkhartishvili, who was born in the republic of Georgia in 1956. A philologist, critic, essayist, and translator of Japanese, he published his first detective stories in 1998 and quickly became one of the most widely read authors in Russia. He has written ten Erast Fandorin novels to date, which have sold more than eight million copies in Russia and been translated into nearly two dozen languages. He lives in Moscow.


    From the Trade Paperback edition.
Reviews-
  • Publisher's Weekly

    February 27, 2006
    Set in 1882, Russian author Akunin's fourth novel to feature Erast Petrovich Fandorin (after 2005's The Turkish Gambit
    ) consists of two parts that read like different books. In part one, the 26-year-old special agent comes to Moscow to investigate the sudden demise of national hero Gen. Mikhail Sobolev, who dies in the bed of an alluring courtesan. Fandorin learns of Sobolev's plan for a coup and of a missing suitcase full of a million rubles to fund it. The trail of the missing suitcase leads to the dangerous Khitrovka slums and then to Pyotr Khurtinsky, the scheming head of the secret section of the governor-general's chancellery. One step ahead of Fandorin is the mysterious Klonov, an assassin who may have once tried to kill our hero. As Fandorin closes in on Klonov, the narrative jumps to a retelling of the assassin's life. This shift brings a welcome change of storytelling, from the often stiff, theatrical language of the first section to a more natural, unembellished style. An exciting resolution only partly offsets this incongruity.

  • Library Journal

    March 1, 2006
    With his steel-trap mind and modest demeanor, Erast Fandorin has just arrived in 1880s Moscow after extended service in Japan, a samurai servant in tow. Prince Dolgorukoi's new deputy for special assignments, Fandorin steps immediately into a hornet's nest: war hero General Sobolev is dead, and Fandorin recognizes immediately that things aren't as they seem. Soon he's tracking down lovely German-born chanteuse Wanda (was Sobolev's murder a German plot?), retrieving secrets from Sobolev's mistress (why did Sobolev have a briefcase full of a million rubles, and where is it now?), and finally uncovering treachery at the very heart of the Russian government. Just as Fandorin is about to confront the murderer, the text deftly switches tohis point of view, telling a very bloody life story leading to his showdown with Fandorin. As with Fandorin's other escapades (most recently, The Turkish Gambit ), the plot is complex but carefully laid out, the action historically significant, and our hero as elusive as ever; now that his adventures are being presented in trade paperback format, more U.S. readers can become acquainted with this singular Russian sleuth. A definite purchase wherever international mysteries/thrillers are popular.BarbaraHoffert, Library Journal

    Copyright 2006 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

  • The Wall Street Journal

    "[Akunin's] novels feature a Slavic Sherlock Holmes who speaks Japanese and English, is skilled at martial arts and has ladykiller good looks. . . . Millions of readers have been seduced."

  • Baltimore Sun "Critics on both sides of the Atlantic have praised [Akunin's] clever plots, vivid characters and wit as sharp as the sword hidden in Fandorin's walking stick."
  • The Providence Journal "Akunin's wonderful novels are always intricately webbed and plotted."
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    Random House Publishing Group
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A Novel
Boris Akunin
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